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Volta Infrastructure Holdings, a London-based start-up incorporated in January, has agreed a $10 billion data centre deal with Anthropic and raised funding from backers including Nvidia at a $2.4 billion valuation.

Volta said its first project is a planned AI data centre in Norway, to be powered by Nvidia systems, as part of the partnership with Anthropic, the AI group behind the Claude chatbot.

The company says it “develops, finances, builds and operates” AI data centres, or “AI factories” as it calls them, bringing together finance, land with local power supply and the hardware and software required by the AI industry “under a single platform”.

Alongside Nvidia, the chip maker, investors include Azora, a Spanish investment firm, Andreessen Horowitz, the Silicon Valley venture capital firm, and Altimeter, a technology investor. The family office of Michael Dell, founder of Dell Technologies, has also invested.

Volta said Azora had established a $5 billion AI infrastructure programme to finance AI factories that Volta will develop.

Company filings show Ricard Boada Rafart, 33, set up Volta with £1 of share capital in January. Boada was previously a senior vice-president at Brookfield Asset Management’s infrastructure group, where he worked on AI infrastructure deals including a $5 billion partnership between Brookfield and Bloom Energy. His LinkedIn profile says he left Brookfield in January.

Volta’s other directors include Shangda Xu and Raghu Raghuram, both of Andreessen Horowitz, and Sofia Gumuzio, a former Brookfield employee who is Volta’s co-founder.

Volta says it has about 100 staff across sites in London, Palo Alto and New York. It may not file its first set of accounts until the end of September next year.

The $2.4 billion figure is roughly two fifths the valuation of Balfour Beatty, the 117-year-old FTSE 250 international infrastructure group, which has about 26,000 staff and reported revenues of £10.8 billion last year.

Volta declined to answer questions about the status of its projects but said it had a “broader near-term development pipeline” in North America and Europe.

Gavin McLaughlin, an Nvidia executive, said the Volta deal was “an important milestone for Europe” and “an exciting step toward expanding access to dependable, scalable AI infrastructure” across the region.

Boada said Volta was set up because AI infrastructure, or “compute”, should be “financed, developed, and commercialised with the principles and scale of infrastructure” so that it “works as reliably and invisibly as electricity”.

The round follows a comparable raise at Nscale, another London-based data centre start-up valued at $14.6 billion after a $2 billion round that also included Nvidia and which brought Nick Clegg and Sheryl Sandberg on to its board.

It also comes amid growing questions about the scale of investment being poured into AI data centres by the technology sector. Industry critics argue that lower-cost Chinese AI models could further undermine the economics of AI investment, although proponents argue this will only increase demand for the technology.

Britain’s grid capacity is also under scrutiny. On 29 July, Ofgem launched a consultation on data centre connection reforms, proposing a Data Centre Commitment Fee set between £237,500 and £712,500 per megawatt, refunded when a project reaches energisation and forfeited if it exits the connections queue early. Ofgem said demand connection applications had risen from 41 gigawatts to 125GW in under a year, with data centre projects accounting for at least 80GW. The consultation closes on 16 September.

Energy costs have already shaped where AI capacity lands. OpenAI paused its Stargate UK data centre project in April, citing British industrial energy prices and uncertainty over copyright rules, and said it would proceed once “the right conditions” allowed.

Jamie Young

Jamie Young is Senior Reporter at Business Matters, covering SME finance, employment law and Westminster policy since 2016. He has reported on every Budget and Autumn Statement since 2018, helped make sense of the ‘covid era’ and the bounce-back loan scheme from launch through the fraud investigations, and broke the magazine’s coverage of the 2024 late-payment reforms. He joined Business Matters straight from completing his BA in Administration from Exeter University and is NCTJ-qualified. Reach him at jyoung@cbmeg.co.uk

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Electronic Arts said on Tuesday that its acquisition by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Silver Lake and Affinity Partners had closed, valuing the games publisher at about $55bn (£41bn). Shareholders receive $210 in cash for each share.

EA’s completion statement said its common stock had ceased trading and would be delisted from Nasdaq. The consortium’s agreement was announced on 29 September 2025 and approved by shareholders at a special meeting on 22 December 2025.

The transaction is thought to be the largest leveraged buyout in history. Alongside the roughly $36bn of equity committed, the consortium is borrowing $20bn arranged by JPMorgan, with the debt carried by EA. J.P. Morgan Securities acted as the consortium’s financial adviser. It ranks as the second-biggest acquisition in gaming, after Microsoft’s $69bn purchase of Activision Blizzard.

Andrew Wilson, chairman and chief executive, who retains his position, said in the statement: “We’re entering this next chapter from a position of strength with partners who share our vision and ambition.”

Turqi Alnowaiser, deputy governor and head of international investments at PIF, said in the fund’s announcement: “Entertainment and sports are key areas of strategic focus for PIF, and are among the fastest growing and evolving sectors around the world.” PIF says it manages more than $900bn in assets.

Jared Kushner, chief executive of Affinity Partners and son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, said EA “has created stories, characters, and communities that have become part of everyday life for hundreds of millions of people”.

How EA services the borrowing has been the subject of speculation among analysts and journalists since the record buyout was announced last September. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier wrote that it could lead to “mass layoffs, more aggressive monetization, and other big cost-cutting measures”.

Christopher Dring, editor-in-chief and co-founder of the Game Business, said the nature of the buyout was likely to mean “a very hands-on approach from the investment group”. He said: “Private equity firms are typically aggressive in their management of companies.”

EA posted net revenue of about $7.5bn in the year to 31 March 2026. Battlefield 6, released last October, sold more than 7 million copies in its first three days, a franchise record. Further layoffs followed at the teams involved.

George Osborn, journalist and author of Power Play: Video Games, Politics and the Battle for Global Influence, said the price still made EA an “appealing” opportunity for PIF, pointing to the company’s longevity and its “seemingly evergreen” live-service titles, which are updated continuously after release.

But he said EA’s value to the fund was “not purely economic”, describing it instead as “owning a soft power asset that is quietly entrenched in the sporting community”.

The deal extends a run of Saudi sports and gaming investments that includes the £300m takeover of Newcastle United, four clubs in the Saudi Pro League and the Esports World Cup, held in 2025. PIF’s other UK holdings include a 40 per cent stake in Selfridges.

Those purchases have drawn accusations of sportswashing, the sponsoring or hosting of sporting events to promote a positive public image and divert attention from human rights issues. The Saudi government has spent years denying such claims.

The advocacy group Players Alliance HQ has asked gamers to petition their local politicians against the deal. Its campaign website says: “With the PIF being the majority owner in the potential buyout, there is a large concern that creative decisions could be influenced by these outside factors, leading to themes such as free speech, gender, LGBTQI+ and other aspects of Western politics being reduced or fully censored across major franchises.”

In Saudi Arabia, consensual same-sex sexual conduct can be punishable by death or flogging under interpretations of Sharia law. Titles in EA’s catalogue including The Sims feature same-sex relationships.

Osborn said the acquisition handed the fund “a relationship with the 20,000 players, 750 clubs and 35 leagues at the top of the professional game”.

“What is clear is that a state seeking to shape perceptions now owns an asset with proven reach to billions of people,” he said. “How it uses it in the years to come is something we should watch closely.”

Amy Ingham

Amy Ingham is a reporter at Business Matters, covering UK business news with a focus on breaking news, business policy, late payments and insolvency. She joined the magazine in 2026 after completing the NCTJ Diploma in Journalism at Harlow College’s journalism school. Her recent reporting includes British Steel’s nationalisation and its impact on SME suppliers, the decline in late payments by large firms, and Insolvency Service director disqualifications. Reach her at aingham@cbmeg.co.uk.

Players working through Wednesday’s New York Times Connections puzzle were met with a grid that blended straightforward synonyms with a tricky wordplay twist, testing solvers’ ability to spot both surface-level categories and a hidden meaning buried in a single common word.

Connections, the daily word-grouping game from The New York Times, challenges players to sort 16 words into four hidden groups of four, each sharing a category that isn’t revealed until the puzzle is solved or given up on. Players are allowed four mistakes before the puzzle ends, and categories are color-coded by difficulty, with yellow representing the most straightforward grouping and purple reserved for the trickiest, often pun-based or definition-driven connection.

Wednesday’s 16 Words

Today’s puzzle, game number 1,151, presented players with the following 16 words, listed alphabetically so as not to give away any groupings: BROTH, CAPE COD, CATTLE, DIESEL, DRIVE, GAP, INVESTMENT, LUCKY, MANEUVER, MERCHANDISE, MISSION, PILOT, RANCH, STEER, TUDOR and WRANGLER.

At first glance, the list appeared to scatter across several unrelated themes, ranging from cooking and finance to real estate and denim, a hallmark of Connections’ design that often hides simple categories among words that seem to belong to entirely different contexts.

Hints for Each Category

For players who wanted a nudge before diving into the full solution, puzzle solvers offered a hint for each of the four color-coded groups, presented from easiest to hardest.

The yellow group, generally the most accessible, pointed toward words describing ways of getting from one place to another, hinting at a category built around the idea of directing or controlling movement.

The green group’s hint pointed toward a more specific and slightly trickier theme tied to architecture and home design, encouraging players to think beyond the words’ more common everyday meanings.

The blue group required recognizing a set of denim clothing brands, a category that leaned on pop culture and retail familiarity rather than wordplay.

The purple group, as is typical for the puzzle’s most difficult category, hinged on a single word’s multiple definitions. The hint for Wednesday’s purple group pointed players toward words that share a common meaning when paired with the word “stock,” encouraging solvers stuck on a word like “stock” itself to think through its many different senses rather than fixating on just one.

Today’s Full Answers

For those ready to check their work or who had exhausted their guesses, here is the complete breakdown of Wednesday’s four categories.

The yellow group, centered on the idea of navigating or steering, included DRIVE, MANEUVER, PILOT and STEER, four words that can each describe the act of guiding or directing movement, whether behind the wheel of a car, at the helm of a plane, or in a more figurative sense.

The green group grouped together CAPE COD, MISSION, RANCH and TUDOR, four recognizable American house styles that share names with broader architectural traditions, a category that likely tripped up players who initially read the words through a different lens, such as geography or cattle ranching.

The blue group brought together DIESEL, GAP, LUCKY and WRANGLER, four well-known jeans and denim brands that populate department store racks and outlet malls across the country.

The purple group, true to form as the puzzle’s hardest category, connected BROTH, CATTLE, INVESTMENT and MERCHANDISE through their shared relationship to the word “stock.” Broth is another word for cooking stock, cattle are commonly referred to as livestock, an investment can take the form of stock in a company, and merchandise held in inventory is often described as stock on hand. The four words each pair naturally with “stock” while representing entirely different meanings of the term, a classic example of the kind of definitional wordplay that regularly appears in Connections’ purple category.

A Puzzle Built on Deception

Wednesday’s grid illustrated a recurring design pattern in Connections, where words that initially appear to belong to one category are deliberately placed to mislead players into incorrect groupings before the true connections become clear. Words like CATTLE and RANCH, for instance, could easily have been mistaken for belonging together under a farming or Western theme, when in fact they landed in entirely separate categories tied to financial terminology and architectural styles, respectively.

That kind of misdirection is central to the puzzle’s appeal, rewarding players who resist locking in an early guess based on surface-level associations and instead wait to see how the full grid of 16 words fits together before committing to a grouping.

Yesterday’s Puzzle for Comparison

Players looking to compare Wednesday’s difficulty against the previous day’s puzzle can look back to Tuesday’s edition, game number 1,150, which grouped words under four categories: long cylindrical things, iconic New York City sights, things with pedals, and V-shaped things. That puzzle’s yellow category included CIGARETTE, FOAM ROLLER, POOL NOODLE and PRETZEL ROD, while its green category grouped BODEGA, PIGEON, SUBWAY STATION and TAXI CAB as recognizable New York fixtures.

Keeping the Streak Alive

Connections has become one of the centerpieces of the Times’ expanding games section, sitting alongside Wordle, Strands, the Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee as part of a daily puzzle routine for millions of players. A new Connections puzzle rolls out at midnight in each player’s local time zone, meaning solvers in different parts of the world are often working through the same 16-word grid at different hours of the day.

For players hoping to preserve a winning streak, checking hints in order, starting with the easier yellow and green categories before moving to the more deceptive blue and purple groupings, remains the recommended approach, since revealing the full solution outright ends the challenge of puzzling it out independently. Still, for those who ran out of guesses or simply wanted to confirm their answers, Wednesday’s puzzle closes out with NAVIGATE, HOUSE STYLES, JEANS BRANDS and MEANINGS OF STOCK as its four completed categories for game number 1,151.

Dressability mainly alters clothing for people with disabilities, but launched its rebranding project after receiving coats that would otherwise have gone to waste.

“We started the rebranding project after getting a delivery of coats from a company that ceased trading,” said Tombs.

“I was concerned that we were throwing away brand new coats, so we sensitively patched and improved them, covering the branding, and the project went from there.”

Once altered, the clothing is then donated to people in need.

“Plus it’s about sustainability, because our work prevents these items from going to landfill,” said Tombs.

Farmers source additional water for their crops and livestock over summer from a combination of stored winter rainfall on site, and by extracting it from natural sources – a process called abstraction.

This can be from groundwater or from surface water, like rivers and streams.

This summer has seen significant low rainfall affecting the amount of water available to draw from.

Half of England and all of Wales have been declared to be in drought conditions by the Environment Agency.

Wales has received just 8% of its average rainfall so far this month. England has received 7% of its average, with that figure as low as 1% across southern England.

The high temperatures and repeated heatwaves have also increased evaporation rates which have particularly hit rivers.

Climate change is expected to bring more severe, frequent and longer-lasting heatwaves in UK summers in the coming years – which could bring more water shortages for farmers.

Tom Lancaster, land, food and farming analyst at the ECIU said: “At the start of spring farmers were hopeful of a better year, but the dry April and July and record-breaking heat have left farmers facing down the barrel of a third awful harvest in a row.

“Farming is now the sector most exposed to climate change and the risks and damage that it brings.”

Martin Lines, head of the Nature Friendly Farming Network and a farmer from Cambridgeshire, said this year’s harvest “has been a real kick in the teeth”.

“After two terrible harvests in a row, the crops this year were looking good and full of potential coming out of spring, only for months of drought and heatwaves to destroy any prospect of a decent harvest,” he said.

“I’ve never known it this dry and hot on our farm.

“Even farmers I know who were sceptical of climate change are now saying they’re really worried about the future of their businesses and production, it’s just been completely brutal for our industry.”

This article was written by

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